An Impossible Combination
by Kyilliki
Summary: A collection of one-shots from the perspective of the Volturi during their happiest moments. Chapter Two: Marcus
1. The Nature of my Game

**TITLE:** An Impossible Combination

**CHARACTERS: **The Volturi, a focus upon Aro and Sulpicia in this chapter

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** A while ago, the brilliant **H. K Rissing** suggested that I should write a series of one-shots featuring the Volturi coven and Guard during their respective favourite days or moments. It was a compelling plot-bunny, and I just had to develop it. I am extremely grateful to **H.K Rissing** for coming up with this idea and letting me play with it. The one-shots will centre around a number of characters, time periods and perspectives.

The title of the fic is taken from a quote by (my hero) Mark Twain : _"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."_ Given the protagonists of this story, I thought that it was fitting. The title of this chapter is taken from the lyrics of the song 'Sympathy for the Devil' by The Rolling Stones. Aro seems to merit it.

**A NOTE ON THE SETTING:** The Volturi fought a number of wars against the Romanians, the first and most decisive beginning in 500 A.D and ending about a century later. This one-shot is set immediately afterwards.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Volterra; 603 A.D.<strong>_

_Aro speaks:_

A war's end brings with it such unbearable lightness. Our foes have had their numbers whittled into twigs and dust, the fluttering remains of their dead left to the whipping wind. We, tossed like twigs upon sea foam, mad and directionless for a century, must learn to stand once more.

We are not the Greeks, skulking home from Trojan ruins, cursed by the gods and forsaken by our kin. Our triumph is flame-edged, reborn from the ashes; the world speaks of it with reverence already. There is something so lyrical about the victory of the meek and downtrodden, as a too-wise Nazarene knew, though I will make a point of not permitting it to happen again.

Ah, but I am scheming once more. Not the time, I think.

I rise from my desk, letting papers drift aside like snow, and wander away. The dawn begins to smear the horizon with bloody fingers, and I wish to watch, like the Egyptians of old. It may be simple, superstitious even, falling upon one's knees to mark daybreak, but I understand the impetus. After glancing over my shoulder to see death's dogging footfalls for the better part of a hundred years, something simple as surviving to view the day's beginning seems delightful.

In my mind's eye, I imagine my entire coven scowling at such opulent sentiment, and even that thought is glossed by joy.

I find my way onto the narrow terrace that flanks my chambers, taking care to remain in the blue darkness pooling at the palazzo's walls. Before me, the rusty roofs and tangling building of Volterra curl, tossed in rambling designs. Beyond that is sky and stone, wealth hewn from rock, and knowledge stolen from all corners of the world.

And it is mine now, for the taking, forging and destroying.

Unbidden, Sulpicia appears behind me, resting her little chin on my shoulder as she raises herself on tiptoe and gazes into the middle distance. I cannot read her features, and she cleverly keeps herself from my bare touch.

She is a lovely creature, my wife: a siren, a muse, a metaphor. A man in love must be such dull company. I make no apologies.

"Sulpicia," I purr, caressing the arched cadences of her name with my tongue, as I would her body. "Come here and _look_," I beg, gesturing to the glorious dawn staining the skyline and creeping catlike into carelessly opened windows. It seems endlessly fitting, a canto from an ancient epic, to mark the blissful beginning of a new age by watching the red-rimmed, reborn sun.

"You are far too old to be enamoured of something so mundane, dear heart," she says, evading my arms, a defiant Daphne to my ardent Apollo. My gaze strays to her ankles, slim and pale, peeking from beneath the hem of her haphazardly knotted robe; there is such exquisite flesh waiting beneath the smokescreen of silk and reason.

Giddy glee spurs me forward and I tangle myself around her, her mind quickening beneath my fingertips. The thoughts I see, a no man's land, remain delightfully unpained by the carnage and ash of the century behind us. Such ferocity, supreme resilience forged and tried, is both rare and lovely

"And yet, sweet Sulpicia, you cannot pretend to _not_ want me, foolishness and all," I grin, confident that my deity of a wife is utterly seduced by supremacy.

"Mm," she breathes, deliberating. "Perhaps." Her eyes are glossy obsidian as she tilts her head onto my chest, becoming a precious, perfect doll in the space of a gesture. It would be simple of me to accuse my Sulpicia of sentimentality, the need for touch and tenderness, but perhaps a simulacrum of softness taints even her snow-strewn skin and colder mind.

I capture her fingers between my own then, pressing a reverent mouth to the frail little bird-bones. Each breathy caress stains my vision with shades of soot and writhing, wrenched bodies, though her memory offers no condemnation.

Such an exquisite aberration I hold in my arms, and I can be no prouder.

"Tell me, why is the master of the known world barefoot and tousled on his terrace? It's so very ordinary," she says, her smirk imperious as she shatters my reverie asunder. Roman birth lends her an impossible propriety that amuses and astounds in equal parts.

"Like the emperors of old, I need reminding that I am fallible." Oh, I am lying of course, but rhetoric must be practised before it can sway the masses.

"Not today," she decides, discarding my deception like unneeded advice. "Besides, I believe that's my responsibility."

"Keeping me in my place? I'd have it no other way." That moment is unguarded, raw-winged as a newly hatched bird, but I owe Sulpicia my veneration after tugging her across the fallen Empire and asking her to witness the cataclysm of battle as only Caius could craft it.

"Where do we go now, my dear?" I murmur into the curling crown of her hair. The sun has flooded the horizon with old copper; the world does not seem so enchanted now, but barbed, bladelike.

I would not call myself afraid. _A darker shade of uncertain_ is a better description.

"Certainly not back to bed, husband," she laughs. My hands have wandered, it seems, to the delicate bows of her hips, the apple-sweet arches of her breasts concealed beneath washed silk.

I permit myself a moment of sulking, if only to see her smile and murmur something wifely and soothing, her lips like moths upon my throat.

"There are speeches to be given, alliances to be negotiated and fallen comrades to be honoured. Surely you cannot tire of being a tyrant so quickly," she says instead, and I cannot help but laugh. Thank the merciful gods that I have secured myself a position, however tenuous, in Sulpicia's good graces; else I'd have the sort of enemy who is desired and never defeated.

"And if I did, it seems that my loving wife would be the first to claim the title," I tell her, grazing her polished cheekbone with my mouth.

"I don't deny it."

Sulpicia's skill, I find, is to over-emphasize her beauty, inviting her watchers to drown themselves in her grace and forget what sort of animus waits behind those shadow-edged eyes. Time has taught me that she is too useful a councillor to be overlooked, cooler than Caius, sharper than Marcus.

"How shall I address those who fought for us, my dear? Recall your illustrious Roman childhood and tell me what your generals did," I say, half-teasing.

"This triumph of yours is only for the senate and people of Rome," she muses. "Or Volterra, in this case. You are merely a humble man, pleased to be of service. Try to repeat that without smirking."

"Next you'll have me say that I wish to step down from leadership and devote myself to a life of scholarly contemplation," I huff. Modesty is a dreadfully unappealing prospect.

Sulpicia pushes me with palms spread like wings, towards our damask-lined chambers and the flint of rule woven into blackness.

[-]

The tower room, the chamber with the chairs, needs a grander name, for our seats are now thrones, symbols of carved and gilded supremacy. Perhaps I will keep the heart of our home austere, some sort of reminder that I am interested in justice, not might. How strange that such a lofty ideal can be conveyed with sparse furnishing. My kind thrives on imagery as much as the merest mortals, I am delighted to confess.

There is something marvellous about cowled robes. My idea, of course, but no matter.

The fabric reduces everyone to a mere colour, a slash of black or ash or slate, taking away such petty things as history and temperament, leaving only strength, a perfect, dignified display of unity. Before me, there are at least thirty shadowed figures, the frayed survivors of an immortal war. Half of them already call me _master_ in their hearts, and the rest...

Perhaps I can win them over.

"My dear ones," I murmur, as I stand, keeping my voice low and feathery. _They_, after all, should strain to hear my words, triumphant though they are.

"On this day, I cannot call you my friends. After we have fought, suffered and witnessed death side by side, I must insist that we are kin, bound by blood and oaths."

To my left, unobtrusive and plain, my guard tightens bonds as an archer would his bow, her brow ridged in thought. I must thank her for her timing, if nothing else; it, as much as my words, sparks embers in the listeners' eyes. They draw closer, eager as children hearing a fable.

"We stand at a precipice today," I continue, letting darkness pad around the edges of my voice. "Our enemies are humbled, but not defeated. Our laws are known, but not upheld. The mortal world struggles in ignorance, and we will meet the same fate if we are not watchful."

Fear, exquisite, emaciated fright, enters the eyes of a few in the assembly. Oh, I do not wish to terrify them into compliance, for I am not so unschooled in the art of guile, but this doubt is precious. It opens the mind to such ludicrous ideas.

"When you depart from here, calling no-one your master, I ask only this: keep our kind secret. I do not make this request as a king, but merely a man who longs for peace."

I am rather proud of myself. The obedient rabble will fill the continent with those loyal to my brothers and me, while dissenters can be dismissed as uncaring, cruel, fit only for Caius' justice.

I open my arms then, in a ghostly embrace and a martyred prostration.

"Stay in Volterra, my dear ones, as long as you wish. Else, leave with our fond wishes and the certainty that the world lies open before you."

There are cheers, of course, because that is the necessary conclusion to dramatic oration. I do not much care for the mood of the mob, a fickle creature at best, but such sentiment can be harnessed when one has certain _assets_ at his disposal. Unobtrusively, I brush a palm over Marcus' knuckles, and watch bonds like silken strands weaving themselves into a tapestry with me at its centre, a beautiful thing, impossible to destroy.

"Perfect," I sigh, my triumph hidden behind steepled fingertips.

[-]

The night unfurls upon leathery wings, punctuated by the shimmering pinpricks of stars and bonfires. Clumsy human voices vaulted in song climb through the narrow windows of the tower chamber, and I smile, throwing my gaze into trembling torchlight. It is St. Marcus' Day, after all, and celebrations are necessary, though the city is half-empty, the sanctuary of ghosts and memories rather than eager-hearted mortals. My followers have been shepherded outside of the city walls by Demetri and Felix, I hope; little Volterra should not have its people slaughtered as immortals rejoice.

My brothers have disappeared too quickly, and I marvel at their trepidation. Their minds are near-synchronous with worry, an utter rarity among cautious Marcus and uncaring Caius. The future troubles them, it seems, an unfamiliar terrain hissing with the horror that only fevered imaginations can concoct.

They'll come around, I suppose, but it may be better if they do not.

I will admit that I have no liking for sharing power, but I do not wish to have blood on my hands or accusations of heartlessness hurled at me either. My dark-haired brother is tragedy cast in the shape of a man; his tale only buys us sympathy. A grieving family, haunted by melancholy is such an endearing notion, after all. We should, perhaps, concoct an equally heart-rending history for Caius, to excuse his particular brand of madness.

"Plotting all alone in the dark, my dear?

As always, Sulpicia finds me before I descend into brooding, and I thank her for it, longing to twine my fingers through the spilled sunlight of her hair.

"There is much to think about, love. And it seems that nobody else is willing to aid me," I say, letting a touch of hurt enter my voice. Being exceptional is a burden, and I am certain that she would agree.

"Already, you cloister yourself away. I know that madness and power walk hand in hand, but I would expect your descent to take a little longer than a day," she says, offering me her hands. Whether she aims to pull me away or show me her mind, I cannot say, for I rise and half-lift her in an embrace.

"Stay with me tonight?" I offer, imagining the blackness turning warm with candle-wax and the scent of her skin.

"Oh, so you are not putting me aside now that you've won your empire. I'm terribly flattered," she says, her voice side-stitched with glee as we leave the room of torches and thrones, retreating into the laughing night.

[-]

The time passes too quickly then, marked by touch and scheming of the sort that only happens between lovers in the dark. When the barest shade of turtledove dawn touches the horizon, I raise my head from its customary place, cushioned upon Sulpicia's hair and skin.

"This will go splendidly," I tell her, referring to the next war, our rule, the coming millennia, or perhaps something far more grandiose.

"Hubris," she sighs under her breath, burying her face in a pillow. "Spare me your Elysian visions, husband."

"I will delight in proving you wrong."

* * *

><p><strong>(MORE AUTHOR'S NOTES, in case the first few were too short for your liking): <strong>Please let me know what you thought of this chapter.

I have not planned out the entire series of one-shots just yet, which means that you can also feel free to suggest characters to write about, and what their favourite and/or happiest moments would be. I'd be interested in hearing perspectives that aren't my own because, as this story suggests, you all have very cool ideas.


	2. Blue on Black

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This chapter is quite unlike anything I've written before. Consider this my preferred ending to the Marcus/Didyme saga. As a warning, I must add that this chapter is from the perspective of a rather self-harming vampire, and involves character death of a sort. If this is problematic for you, please sit this one out. The chapter title is taken from the song _Blue on Black_ by Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Thanks go once again to **H.K Rissing **for suggesting the overall idea for this story.

* * *

><p><strong>Years from now<strong>

_Marcus speaks:_

I have kept your possessions until time destroyed them, my Didyme, and that ripped my soul to scraps a thousand times over.

We will not pretend that I am soulless. Semantics become mirrors and smoke with the years, and I will not trouble myself with the faith of mortals.

Your clothes faded first, reduced to wisps, then mist, then nothing at all by moths and decay. Even your scent did not linger upon the scraps of silk and ribbons of linen.

I tell myself that your skin carried the memory of slow summer, sweet with honey and the promise of apples. It is not that I can't remember—I try to remember so fiercely that I fear my mind has given me a pretty tale instead of the truth.

I will never ask Aro to remind me. I cannot, my heart, and I pray that you understand.

You collected beautiful trinkets, scrolls and shells and feathers. Every so often, I move a box or reach into a corner with filmy fingers and find some echo of you veneered with cobwebs and smooth at the edges.

That hasn't happened in centuries, but I retain hope that something—_anything _remains undiscovered.

I almost hate you for wearing silver. It tarnishes, you see, so quickly that I can scarcely go a decade without polishing it. You were never _dull_, and it seems an insult for your jewellery to turn the ugly shade of iron. I am clumsy though, and soon enough, those bright scraps of metal are bent and broken.

Perhaps gold would have suited you better. Would have lasted.

I have so little left of you, my darling. A looking glass—it is only a bronze disc, but I remember the grace of your fingers moulded around it. Hair pins. A few breaths of fabric, but those are fraying. A handful of coral beads.

When that is lost—I cannot. I will not think about it.

You will permit me that flaw, I hope.

[-]

The days are brutal now, a grind of metal that splinters my shoulders beneath it.

I cannot stand my brothers. I will not pretend that the tawny fall of time has been kind to me, but they have matched it blow for blow in cruelty.

I suppose you would like it if I were kind to Aro, and gentle to Caius. You insisted that your blood brother was good, that your brother by words alone had something of worth at his core. I do not wish to prove you wrong.

So I sit beside them, straight-spined and stern, watching them judge supplicants, the penitent and the damned.

You would think that they would grow weary of it, or that the ceaseless stream of our kind would one day turn into a trickle lapping at Volterra's cobblestones. Even humiliation in America, before an audience of half the world, has not stemmed it.

I suppose nothing will.

"You look tired, brother," Aro tells me at twilight, every day for a thousand years.

[-]

It is strange, my dear.

I doubt you will believe me.

I keep all of your treasures in a box. It is not locked, but I permit no one in my chambers. Not my brothers, or their wives, or Charmion-Chiara-Chelsea, my blank-eyed shadow.

Your looking glass was on my desk, winking at the dying sun like a cheerful child. I do not comprehend _how._

I suppose I raged, enough to make little Renata weep and scamper to Sulpicia's side. She has never seen me do such a thing, but then, I have never felt truly mad.

I cup the warm metal in my hand before letting it slip into its proper place, encased in oak and silence.

[-]

Do you remember the parapets, my Didyme?

We climbed there to see the stars or the roofs, to avoid the squabbles of our family. The pigeons would fly from us in a wall of feathers and grey softness, and you would laugh.

Your laughter was beautiful. Mostly, that is merely something that lovers say, but I promised that I meant it. I did, if that matters. Falling silver and rainwater, the arch of your brows—I cannot forget that.

I heard you laughing today, my darling, amidst the church-bells and the cooing doves.

For a moment, I did not think myself a dreamer or a man with a fleeing mind. I merely thought that my wife was happy, a creature of gold in the sunlight.

[-]

I wish you had lived to see the present. The world has become so clever, sleek and slender and infinite. You would have delighted in screens and signals turned to images and words. Every time I unfold my computer, a mystery of wires and silicon trapped in a silver shell, I think about you, your eyes round with wonder.

Your joy was limitless, as was your curiosity.

When I removed my laptop from its sheath of soft leather today, a handful of blossoms tumbled onto my knees.

Apple and honeysuckle.

I could throw porcelain at the walls, and frighten whatever wide-eyed wraith my brothers have decided should guard me. I do not.

It is winter. The flowers are not in season.

[-]

I look for you in every alcove and portico now. Perhaps—oh, but I do not believe in shades and spirits. You are dead as earth and ash, my heart, and my mind is painting lies for me. It is a small mercy.

I do not give Aro my hand anymore. I would rather he not know that I chase spectres and shadows.

[-]

Like every one of our kind, I retain my preferences when I feed. Or rather, your preferences.

Do you remember how much you enjoyed lapping the blood from red-headed humans? You could never explain the appeal to me, but I believed you. I still do.

Today, the girl in my arms had copper curls and eyes like a storm at sea. I did not twist her neck before tearing apart her throat and eating her alive.

She was thrashing, and then she wasn't. She was freckled, and then pale, flawless as sculpted alabaster. She was a scab-kneed mortal thing, and then she was—_you, _my Didyme_. _ Ink-haired and scarlet-eyed with bruised petals ringing her lashes.

I did not drop her. I would not let you fall either.

I swear she—you—spoke. Greek, ancient and inflected, as no over-eager scholar could emulate, a mere cold breath against my cheek as I feasted upon arterial blood.

_Come back_.

And then she was a dead girl again, with hair like a troubled sunset.

Felix looked at me strangely when I gave him her body to hide in the catacombs. I hadn't left a single bruise on her arms, you see, and I am not a gentle man.

[-]

I have no trouble accepting that my mind is no longer my own. Madness is the eager companion of immortality, after all, and I assumed that it would pay me a visit with time.

It is—I suspect that you are unhappy somewhere.

That breaks me, more than a dozens of sullen centuries. I taste tears in my throat, the way one does after weeping for hours, and I do not think I can stand. After that—there are no words.

Once more, my Didyme, I ask for your forgiveness.

[-]

I have a fireplace in my room, which I find almost charming in its foolishness. Blood sings to those of us who are not fractured, but flame will do just as well.

It is too simple to spill oil onto dry wood and let a candle tumble onto the slick birch. The hearth brings with it the scent of cathedrals, or a pyre of an ancient king, all frankincense and blue coils of rising heat.

One by one, I feed your memories to the lapping crimson tongues, severing my ties to this place, this hell of red rock and muffled voices. Bronze will not burn, but everything else is greedily consumed—a sacrifice, a purchase of safe passage.

I pray that the stench of smoke-bitten robes will not disturb my brothers.

There is no decorous way to end a life, my own included, so I settle for clumsiness. Logic's facade shrouds and dims the embers of fear.

I push both of my palms, without caution or experimentation, into the fire and deeper, touching the charring wood. It hurts, of course, but not nearly as badly as I expected. Everything worth losing has long since burned away, you see.

The orange-blue dance engulfs me, robs me of touch and sight, of memory. I scream, I think, but whether it is agony or ecstasy, I cannot say.

[-]

"You came."

The words are a breath and a brush of warm wings against my cheek. I do not dare open my eyes—if I do, I will be _home_ once more, amidst the ashes of you, a chamber that smells of flame, an appalled family, ruins for hands.

"Look at me, Marcus."

A sliver of laughter lingers in the air, and the scent of summer. I comply. You were always a bossy little creature.

Your eyes are brown-grey-green, and breathtaking. Phantom freckles brush your nose.

My legs splinter, shatter, permit me to fall, until I am kneeling.

"I've imagined you," I whisper, sobs curling the corners of my speech. "So many times. This isn't—this—"

Slim fingers tangle into my hair and trace a pattern that is distinctly yours. The fabric of your skirt is the shade of pearl, and beneath it, your legs are sun-warmed.

"Maybe we are imagining. But it is a shared imagining, yes?"

Your whimsy lurks in those words, your laughter too. You're in my arms suddenly, and the fit is glorious. You're tiny, a doll really, and so _soft, _feathers and shells_— _I kiss you like a drowning man while my heart tears and breathes and _lives_. I think you're laughing against my mouth, eager and so bright that it hurts.

When we pause, to stare and gasp and murmur meaningless things, a tide of salt-streaked tenderness, the stars come out on a strange horizon, in constellations that I have never seen before. They are so lovely, these figures in the sky, that I would accuse you of making them, if I could remove my lips from you.

"What is this?" I will not let you go, not for a moment, not even to see your expression as you answer.

"What comes after," you whisper.

You are _more_ than I remember, but I do not know how to say that.

Instead, I touch you all over, as you giggle and sigh and whimper winged encouragements, as though we were young and terribly poor at this game once more. Your cheeks are stained pink, and that's enough to make me forget how to think.

It's strange that I have not told you how much I love you, so I do. Like a child, with broken, ragged words.

"I know," you say, shivering. "No less than I love you. Do you know how long I've _waited_-?"

The stars fall overhead, a rain of silver.

[-]

We rise later—hours, weeks, moments—a pearl skyscape stretching above, too intimate and distant, devoid of suns and moons and birds. The grass whispers, ghostly with forgotten words, and alien as the pewter sprawl above it. There are pressed paths in it, large and small, as though little children and grown men have wandered through.

You take my hand, your nails like shells, and we do what those who have come before us did, after the waiting.

* * *

><p><strong>Another AUTHOR'S NOTE: <strong>Unlike Carlisle, I've decided that vampires have an afterlife. It seems to be a cross between the Grecian Underworld and the Heaven presented in the novel _The Lovely Bones_. Not quite sure how that happened.

I realize that the concept of this story is strange, but I've meant to write it in some permutation for a long while. Please let me know what you thought, and thank you for reviewing the previous one-shot in this series.


End file.
